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You won’t often find me agreeing with A. A. Gill. But there’s a first time for everything:
Critics are culture’s traffic wardens…
What a wonderful and accurate description of these parasites on the arts.
I asked a producer how important the critics are to his business. “Ten years ago, very. Some could make a show or seriously cripple it. Now, not much. We still get the quotes for the posters, but it’s really only a habit. There certainly isn’t any one critic that theatregoers or people in the business have to read. There’s nobody like Frank Rich was on Broadway, or Tynan or Levin here. I can’t think of a single one whose reports would make someone go to the theatre for the first time. It’s sad, really. They’re sad, really.”
Not really, it’s good riddance to bad rubbish. Now, when will the food critics and the film critics go the same way and leave the rest of us to make up our own minds? Yes, we are capable, thankyou very much.
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